By Michael Bratton, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and African Studies at Michigan State University and senior adviser to Afrobarometer, and E. Gyimah-Boadi, Executive Director of Afrobarometer and the Ghana Center for Democratic Development
Beyond the limelight and the headlines, the recent Group of 20 (G20) summit accomplished an important piece of business by launching the Compact with Africa. The next step is crucial: negotiating the priorities that the compact will address.
One key concept is that the compact is with – rather than for – Africa, implying that it will rely on true partnerships to pursue mutually agreed-upon goals.
With its contribution to a “20 Solutions” document presented to the G20 by a consortium of think tanks, the pan-African research network Afrobarometer is working to ensure that the compact will take into account what ordinary Africans say they want and need.
ll farmers are affected by pests and diseases attacking their crops, but smallholder farmers and their dependents in low- and middle-income countries are disproportionately affected. To put it in perspective, there are about 500 million smallholder farmers worldwide who feed about 70% of the world’s population. When you cultivate less than a hectare (2.5 acres) of land and rely on your crops for both sustenance and income, fighting pests can become a battle for life and death. International trade and climate change are exacerbating the problem by altering and accelerating the spread of crop pests.
Environmental migration is a fact. Most countries experience some form of migration associated with environmental and climate change, or forced immobility for those populations that end up trapped. Sudden-onset disasters as well as slow-onset environmental change taking place around the world, whether natural or manmade, profoundly affect migration drivers and migration patterns, even though the relationship between concrete environmental factors and migratory response is seldom direct and linear. Indeed, environmental migration or immobility results from the interplay of intricate economic, political, social and environmental dynamics, where the environmental component is sometimes hard to identify but is nonetheless critical.
